Fast breathing, lethargic guppy

Hi all. About a week or so ago I noticed my scissor tail guppy had become extremely antisocial and quite lethargic. Being relatively new to fishkeeping I mistook this as just being his personality as he never really did tend to get involved with the other fish. The past couple of days he had started to hang around in the top corner of the tank, very close to the surface, breathing heavily (I didn't realise this at the time). I did start to become concerned, but he continued to eat well and was always responsive when the other fish came by. When I checked the tank this morning he'd unfortunately passed away.

One of my other guppies as of today seems to be showing similar symptoms. He's been swimming on one end of the tank by himself (not still, he's swimming around somewhat) and he seems to be breathing quite quickly. He ate earlier as normal and he's responsive to the other fish. His fins seem normal and his gills aren't red. The tank is planted (no CO2) and should be well oxygenated with a spray bar and an air stone. It's 200L with 7 guppies and 6 bronze cory with all of the other fish seeming fine. Ammonia and nitrite are both 0 and nitrates are between 5-10ppm - pH is 8. I did a 30% PWC on Friday and another 30% today to try and help him out.

Does anyone have any ideas on what it could be and what I could potentially do to help? Cheers.

 

Could you post a picture? Did you recently stir up the substrate or redo some of the things in the tank? Anything that could get stuck in their gills? My betta had shown similar symptoms when he ate a bit of sand.

 

Certainly. This is the best pic I could snap of him. I haven't intentionally stirred up the sand, but the corys are constantly sifting through it.

 

Certainly. This is the best pic I could snap of him. I haven't intentionally stirred up the sand, but the corys are constantly sifting through it.

View attachment 707585

Thanks for the pic, it’s really helpful . So, I see two things wrong here, one being that it has fin rot, it’s still in the early stages though. The other is that it’s mouth looks like it’s stuck open? That could just be the picture but if it’s not then my guess is he ate something that got stuck. I think the cause of the fin rot is stress from not being with enough guppies. With 7 guppies and 6 corys that tank is very lightly stocked and he probably feels a bit lonely, causing him to be stressed. What food are you feeding them?

 

Thanks for the replies.

His mouth isn't stuck open, it's constantly opening and closing, which I've read is because of heavy breathing. I think I caught him just as he'd opened it.

Do you think it may be fin rot? I did compare him to a picture I took about a month or so ago and he does look very similar, if not the same. I'm currently feeding them mini flakes with the occasional freeze dried bloodworm serving. They do sometimes manage to eat some of the Hikari micro pellets I put in for the corys too.

I can definitely add some more tank mates though. I've been introducing new fish gradually and I could pick up another group when I'm next in the fish store.

 

No the fin rot wouldn’t cause them to act like this. There are three things that I think would cause this
1. Not enough tankmates and they’re stressed by lack of friends
2. A bacterial infection
3. Internal or external parasites
Can you search up gill flukes and see if the symptoms are alike? That was my first thought but the gills not being red threw me off.

 

I've read through the symptoms of gill flukes from a couple of sources and I'm not entirely sure. He still has a very good appetite, although his gills do appear to be open (not sure if it's just because he's breathing fast).

He seems to have perked up a bit now - he's swimming with the others and playing with them, but he's still opening and closing his mouth and appears to be breathing quickly.

 

If his gills are stuck open it’s probably flukes or something stuck in his gills. Could you try to get a close up picture of his gills?

 

After battling with focus and trying to keep him still, these are the best pictures I could come up with.

There does look like some slight redness to his gills in the second picture, although the camera/lighting has saturated his colouration. He's more silver/white than the yellow/gold in the picture. The white specks on his tail fin are just bubbles. Hopefully that's a little bit helpful! Thanks for the help.

 

What’s that red spot? It almost looks like ammonia burns but I know you don’t have ammonia. Now, I usually wouldn’t recommend this but I really can’t think of anything besides flukes or a blood infection. I would treat for flukes, if that doesn’t resolve the problem then just let them recover for a week (or if the issue gets major start medicating for a bacterial infection) and begin treatment for a bacterial infection. Sorry I couldn’t be more help, I’ve never had flukes before so all I know is from reading and research.

 

I think the red is his colouration - it's on both sides and Googling half black guppy seems to show others with similar patches as well.

I ordered some fluke treatment last night, which should be arriving later today so I'll give that a shot to begin with. Thank you for the help! At least I've now a plan to try and help him improve.